Fmr IAEA Inspector: Netanyahu's Cartoons About Iran's Nuclear Program are 'Baseless and Childish'

In a 'show and tell' type talk, Netanyahu claimed that Iran is
developing a nuclear weapons program and tried to provide evidence that Iran is
violating the JCOPA. Former US IAEA Nuclear Weapons Inspector Robert Kelley
tells TRNN Netanyahu'ss claims are baseless, self-serving, and childish.

Biography:

Robert Kelley is a licensed nuclear engineer who has worked on many aspects of
nuclear weapons and later on nuclear nonproliferation. His personal experiences
include weapons simulation testing, plutonium metallurgy, isotope separation and
emergency response. These experiences were extremely useful in carrying out
intelligence analyses of foreign countries and lead to field experience as a
chief inspector in Iraq nuclear weapons inspections and elsewhere. He is
currently affiliated with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
in Sweden and several other nonproliferation organizations.

Interview Transcript:

SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to
you from Baltimore. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Iran lie talk is
all over the Internet, and it is aimed at pressuring the United States into
withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. In case you missed the show and tell,
here are some of the pertinent clips.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Iran lied. After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran
intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear pile. In 2017, Iran moved its
nuclear weapons pile highly secret location in Tehran. A few weeks ago, in a
great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half of the material inside
these walls. And here's what we got. 55000 pages, another 55000 files on 183
CDs.

SHARMINI PERIES: He gave this speech just after Israel's military bombardment of
Iran-supported Syrian military installations, reportedly killing 11 Iranians, an
unknown number of Syrians, while destroying 200 ground-to-ground missiles.
Netanyahu's attempt to present what he called evidence of a secret Iranian
nuclear weapons program was obviously coordinated with the U.S., and Donald
Trump complied accordingly.

DONALD TRUMP: What Israel has done today with the news conference, and Prime
Minister Netanyahu just gave a very, I don't know i f everybody's seen it, but I
got to see a little bit of it. And that is just not an acceptable situation. And
I've been saying that's happening. They're not sitting back idly, they're
setting off missiles, which they say are for television purposes. I don't think
so. So we'll see what happens. I'm not telling you what I'm doing, but a lot of
people think they know.

SHARMINI PERIES: These escalation tactics are coming from Israel at a time when
Donald Trump is expected to render a decision on if the U.S. will continue to
waive the sanctions against Iran on May 12. In response to the Netanyahu talk,
the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Atomic Energy Agency, known as the
IAEA, the body that is in place to monitor Iran's compliance with the NPT and
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the GCPOA, which is the agreement that
often people refer to as the Iran nuclear agreement. Now, in relation to
Netanyahu ' s talk, the agency issued a statement saying that the agency had no
credible indication of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a
nuclear explosive device after 2009, and it said that it is based on the
director general's report, and that the board of governors declared that its
consideration of this issue was now closed. Now, the IAEA said this all in
response to what Netanyahu said in that speech about having evidence of a
nuclear weapons program. So we know all of this is now hogwash.

So now the issue is that do these claims of Netanyahu of a secret weapons
program in Iran have any merits? To discuss this I'm joined by Robert Kelley.
He's 35-year veteran in nuclear science. He spent years working on this issue
for the U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex, most recently at Los
Alamos , and managed a centrifuge and plutonium program at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, and later was the director of the Department of Energy
Remote Sensing Laboratory, which is premier U.S. nuclear energy response
organization. He's also been seconded by the USDOT to the IAEA, where he's
served twice as director of the nuclear inspections program, once in 1992 and
then in 2001. Now, Kelly is currently affiliated with the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute in Sweden. And I say all of this because
I want you to know how credible he is when he is making the declarations that he
is doing today in relation to what Netanyahu said. Robert, I thank you for
joining us today.

ROBERT KELLEY: Good evening.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Robert, these 55000 pages and CD files that Netanyahu
revealed as proof of Iranian nuclear weapons program, what are their merits?

ROBERT KELLEY: Things that first come across as being relevant are dealing with
forgeries and dealing with information that was fed to us by people who had an
agenda. A well known example is when the United States claimed that Iraq was
trying to acquire uranium from the country of Niger back in 2002. And we
eventually got our hands on the documents that were the basis for that, and they
were just amazing forgeries. They're typical of what we see in this cache from
Netanyahu yesterday, in that you can have an awful lot of genuine information
that you pump onto people, and then you solved a few little things inside of it
that are the forgeries. And that's what we saw in the Niger case. There were
lots of things, there were airline reservations, plans for meeting schedules,
all kinds of things that were genuine.

But in addition to that, we had a few documents in there that said we, the
Nigerians, want to sell you uranium, and send your ambassador down here and the
ambassador can buy uranium for us. The things in those documents were odd, like
dates were whited out and changed, and that kind of thing. So we got pretty used
to looking at forgeries. I think in this case we may see again that someone has
dumped 50000 pages of information, for example, and they're just hoping that
someone will go through it and find a few things in there that were put in there
for them to find that will make it look genuine.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Robert, one curious thing here is that Netanyahu did not
mention the Arak reactor, which could have provided as provided as more evidence
to make the claims that he was trying to make, but he didn't mention it. Why?

ROBERT KELLEY: He talked about the things that were required for a nuclear
program. He mentioned centrifuges for uranium enrichment, missiles, and
something else, I forget what it was. But he left out the plutonium route
altogether. Which is interesting, because obviously, if you look at satellite
imagery, you have concrete evidence. And I call it concrete evidence because you
see them not pouring concrete, showing that the Iranians themselves had lost
interest in that reactor as far back as 2004. So what you're seeing there is
that Netanyahu doesn't mention it because it's really not an issue anymore. And
by not mentioning it I think he's being quite dishonest in dropping an issue
that's been before the public in the past.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Give us some further details as to the kinds of
statements or claims that Netanyahu made in that speech that you could either
concur with or refute.

ROBERT KELLEY: I thought many of the things that he presented were very
childish. I would think that a country like Israel that has its own nuclear
weapons, and has scientists who must be pretty competent, would be able to look
at the information we were shown and say right away, this is garbage. He
presented very early in the presentation drawing which was supposed to be an
illustration of a nuclear device. And you look at that drawing, it's a cartoon.
It's a joke. You look at it and the dimensions, the relative dimensions, because
nothing is actually marked clearly, are impossible. That thing wouldn't work.
And so the first thing you see is he's using a cartoon.

I've went on the Internet this afternoon and dredged up half a dozen cartoons in
ten minutes. There was far better quality than what he presented. He presents
something that is actually a critical assembly machine, which is a common device
used in many nuclear programs. They don't say what it is, but it's this picture
of some colorful spheres being pushed together and taken apart in a little
sequence. They have a little animated sequence. It's very obvious that is a
critical assembly machine, and they've been in use in the United States since
1946. I even found some pictures on the Internet of one in South Korea showing
hemishells, as well. So you look at this and you see it's completely amateurish,
completely childish, and trying to make something very important out of
something that's not important at all.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Robert, Netanyahu's own military leaders and the U.S.
military leaders are both there telling their leaders that Iran is actually in
compliance with the GCOP. And yet Netanyahu wants to destroy the very thing that
is in place for Israel's safety, and that is this agreement. Why is Netanyahu
trying to urge the U.S. and others to withdraw from this agreement?

ROBERT KELLEY: Iran is completely in compliance with the agreement. That's been
stated by so many people. The IAEA, the U.S. government, the secretary of
defense, many of the people in the Israeli intelligence and military. Everyone
says that Iran is in compliance. So it's a total and complete lie that they're
not. What is being said, and what Netanyahu said over and over again, is Iran
used to have a nuclear weapons program. Great. Everybody who's ever analyzed the
problem agrees, if you were a serious analyst, and you're not just just playing
around as armchair analysts as we see in Washington. But if you look at its
program, and according to the U.S. and according to concrete evidence like
satellite imagery, they gave it up pretty much in 2003-2004. And so what he is
saying is Iran has lied about their past activities, and therefore can't be
trusted. But that's completely separate from the idea that they have a JCPOA and
they're following it.

I never thought I would see the day when Benjamin Netanyahu was the strongest
advocate for the JCP OA. Because if you summarize what it is he said yesterday
in his series of childish lie,s what he's saying is Iran lied in the past, and
they had a program. And those of us like me say, yeah, we know that. We know
that. That means they have the knowledge, they have paperwork, they have some
drawings, even if they're cartoons. I think they went further. So yeah, they
have the knowledge.

So what is keeping Iran from building a nuclear weapon? It's a JCPOA . It's the
lack of access to nuclear materials, which the JCP O A very correctly and
totally stops them from doing, with strong verification methods. And the JCPOA
is the one thing standing between Iran and this goal Netanyahu is so worried
about. So he and Trump should be the strongest supporters of keeping the JCP O A
alive and healthy.

SHARMINI PERIES: And finally, Robert, Netanyahu's reference to the final report
of the IAEA. What did Netanyahu say, and what did you think of what he said?

ROBERT KELLEY: Well I think what he said is, that it was a really cheap shot.
The IAEA was given some very bogus information back in 2011, most of which
Netanyahu repeated yesterday. It was about [name inaudible] being the head of
the program, the Amak program. All of that stuff was very well known and was
communicated to the IAEA in the late June 2000 period, even before 2011. Even
Olli Heinonen has made comments to the effect that he's seen this stuff before.
So you've got a situation where he's repeating very old information that has
been discredited.

When IAEA got that information, they published in 2011 a series of rather strong
accusations against Iran. In 2015, they published their final report on the
topic, the one he refers to. And what did they say in that report? He said very
clearly, we've just spent four or five years checking all of these things, and
we can't prove a single one. So you've got the IAEA, who got bogus information
from Israel and the United States. That's in the preface to the 2011 report. And
then they're saying five years later none of that was true. So for Netanyahu to
bring that up again I think it is actually kind of funny, because he said, we
gave them bad information and they dug into it and couldn't find anything to it.

That does, of course, lead to the issue of who's doing the lying. And yeah, I
think Iran has decided they're not going to admit to a passport deal. That's
their business. That's fine. Israel is not going to admit to a current program
or any of the things that they've done in the past. That's fine, that's their
business. They didn't want to sign the nonproliferation treaty. So let it go.
And the IAEA has lied on a number of occasions to Iran. So if you were going to
start painting people with a brush that says, you know, somebody is lying and
therefore we can't trust anything they've said in the past, I don't trust
Israel, I don't trust the IAEA, and obviously, in the case of Iran, I've said I
think they had a program and they've lied about it. That's where I stand today.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Robert I know you are a scientist, and not a political
scientist. However, all of this raises the question, why Israel doesn't want the
Iran nuclear agreement intact, holding them accountable to its compliance? One
would think that would provide the security that Israel is looking for. And in
spite of what you just said, which is that Iran is actually a nuclear
weapons-power ed country, they don't want their neighbors to have it. And this
is the only agreement that we have to ensure the safety of Israel. But Netanyahu
is conducting himself as if it is a threat. Why are they doing that?

ROBERT KELLEY: Well, thank you for making the distinction that I'm a nuclear
engineer who used to build bombs and who has analyzed nuclear programs for the
last 30 years. I'm not a political scientist. When I look at it, what I see is
that there are people in the U.S. government and in the Israeli government who I
think really want to have a war with Iran. They think that they will be better
off destroying that country's capabilities, and any excuse to get into a war
with them is a good thing. I don't think it's a good idea to have a war with
Iran. I think we learned our lesson, or should have learned our lesson, by
disrupting Iraq and the whole Middle East. If we have a war with Iran a lot more
people are going to die for not very good reasons. And I think the net result of
this will be very clear in 20-30 years that it was another stupid mistake on
the, actually on a larger scale than what George Bush did when he invaded Iraq
in 2003.

I think they want a war. I think they're pushing for war, they're looking for an
excuse to war, they're looking for provocation. And they can provoke Iran by
removing sanctions that they, reinstating sanctions that the U.S. and others
have agreed to. Breaking out of the agreement is not breaking out of the U.N.
Security Council resolution authored by the U.S. and approved by the UNSC. It's
a U.S. Congress requirement that the president has to certify these release of
sanctions. So he's pandering to the Republican Congress, not to the agreement
himself. He's not talking about pulling out an agreement. He's talking about
using congressional power to punish Iran. And Iran is going to have to respond.

SHARMINI PERIES: And then how do you think they will respond?

ROBERT KELLEY: That's a really hard question. But given the circumstances that
we're dealing with here, it's all about a nuclear program, right. And they're
not going to go back and reinstitute the plutonium reactor, because they've
already given up on that. They poured concrete in the old vessel and destroyed
it, and made it a non-route. But there are an awful lot of centrifuges in Iran
that they could take out of storage that right now the IAEA is maintaining that
they're not being used. They could take those out, set them back up again, and
start enriching uranium just to stick their finger in Trump's eye. And that's
the sort of thing you expect in a schoolyard fight when you have the mature
parties calling each other names and doing things. I would expect that they're
going to have to go back and say, you say we can enrich uranium, we're going to
enrich uranium. Whether they need it or not, they're going to start doing it
just to show that you can't can't make fools of us.

If you look at what Iran gave up in the end the JCPOA, they give up everything
except face. They got rid of all kinds of capability, and they gave it up rather
willingly. And they just save face by keeping a few centrifuges and saying we
have the right to do this, but we're not going to do anything with them for at
least 10 years. That was saving face, it wasn't actually trying to keep a
program alive.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Robert. I thank you so much for joining us at such a
late hour for you.

ROBERT KELLEY: Nice to be with you again. And let's hope this goes somewhere.
Again, I just like to point out, I'm so glad that Netanyahu has made the case
that the JCPOA is essential, and vital, and good.

SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you for joining us. And thank you for joining us here on
The Real News Network.